A small cell base station is a radio access point device with low power consumption, which is primarily characterized by miniaturization of all the radio access components including radio frequency, baseband components, and upper layer protocol processing components, thus providing flexible hotspot coverage and blind area coverage for an operator.
FIG. 1A illustrates a schematic structural diagram of the existing small cell base station including a network protocol processing module 11, an upper layer protocol processing module 12, a physical layer protocol processing module 13, and a transceiver module 14, and FIG. 1B illustrates a data processing method thereof in the downlink including the following steps:
Step 1011: the network protocol processing module 11 receives baseband data from an Internet Protocol (IP) network interconnecting networks, and performs network protocol processing thereon, and then sends to the upper layer protocol processing module 12;
Step 1012: the upper layer protocol processing module 12 performs protocol processing on the received baseband data according to an upper layer protocol (including the L2 data link layer, the L3 network layer, and the Radio Resource Management (RRM) protocol and algorithm), and sends the processed baseband data to the physical layer protocol processing module 13;
Step 1013: the physical layer protocol processing module 13 performs protocol processing on the received baseband data processed under the upper layer protocol, according to the L1 physical layer protocol, and sends to the transceiver module 14; and
Step 1014: the transceiver module 14 converts the received baseband data into a radio signal, and sends the radio signal.
At this time the transceiver module 14 enables network coverage to provide a user with a mobile communication service.
FIG. 1C illustrates a data processing method thereof in the uplink including the following steps:
Step 1021: the transceiver module 14 receives a radio frequency signal from a mobile terminal, and converts the radio frequency signal into an uplink baseband data, and then sends to the physical layer protocol processing module 13;
Step 1022: the physical layer protocol processing module 13 receives the uplink baseband data from the transceiver module 14, processes it according to the L1 physical layer protocol, and sends the processed uplink baseband data to the upper layer protocol processing module 12;
Step 1023: the upper layer protocol processing module 12 receives the uplink baseband data from the physical layer protocol processing module 13, and processes it according to the upper layer protocol, and then sends to the network protocol processing module 11; and
Step 1024: the network protocol processing module 11 receives the uplink baseband data from the upper layer protocol processing module 12, and processes it according to the network protocol, and then transmits back to a core network over the IP network.
With the small cell base station structured above and the data processing methods thereof, the existing small cell base station enables hotspot coverage and blind area coverage for the operator; however transmit power of the small cell base station is so limited due to a requirement of an indoor application that the transmit power is typically 250 milliwatts (mW) and there is coverage by the single base station. Since the transmit power is low and there are a number of blocking indoor buildings, there may be such a small coverage area that it will be difficult for the existing small cell base station to accommodate applications thereof in scenarios where a large coverage area is required in an enterprise, a public place, etc.